Something wild – well, wild for Claridge’s – in Gordon Ramsay’s old cave

Fera is in Gordon Ramsay’s old cave at Claridge’s. His red and yellow room, like a ripped-off arm, has been annihilated; here now is ‘restful’ green, and food by Simon Rogan. His cooking apparently ‘never stands still’. (I am quoting a website.) Fera means ‘wild’. In Latin. I am not sure a restaurant can be wild, but it can be needy. I request a table online. Fera says no. I telephone. Fera says yes. I give my credit card details because love is always conditional. I am then invited to confirm, reconfirm, and re-reconfirm, in the manner of a restaurant impersonating a woman requiring reassurance from a green lover. It is like the Daily Mail’s dolphin that fell in love with its trainer, and committed suicide when rebuffed.

Most popular

Ameer Kotecha

Lindt has cheapened itself

Claridge’s is beautiful and polished to insanity. I am afraid of the people it employs to stand in the lobby and stare at people. They are here to check that visitors match the theme; and, if they are scruffy or disgusting, to move them onwards as soon as possible. (Of course A doesn’t stand a chance; out of a storm, he is bounced away to the cloakroom, dried, pressed and secured to his chair, which is green.) It also employs a woman to invade a toilet cubicle just vacated, should the guest be too stupid or hateful to flush. There are couture children with nannies, and Arab men in sports casual and wires sprouting from their portable electric goods; everyone else looks like Evgeny Lebedev and his publicist. My favourite Claridge’s story is how General Eisenhower fled his suite because it was pink. He moved to a cottage in Kingston-upon-Thames where only the Nazis could get him.

There is a thick round curtain, which has reminded critics who know nothing of strip clubs of strip clubs; the name on the floor in lights; and a dining room on two levels, arranged around the bleached remains of a dead tree.